Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Chatter in music academia is quiet as of late, most likely this is because the AMS convention is taking up all of the adults' time. However, even those of us that do not fully practice the Arts Musicologick have been eeriely silent. One minor point of contention from something posted on Dial M.

I felt sorry for them until a detailed analysis of the various Halens' hair lengths reveal this was from the current reunion tour. I think the real microtonal problem lay not with the synthesizer recording but in Wolfgang's backing vocals. That's not the point of contention. It's actually with this response to the matter (from this totally insane blog post):

I can’t tell which is funnier, this long-hated cheesebag-anthem turned into amuch more interesting, atonal mess in front of thousands of paying customers[...]

This is not more interesting, this sounds like shit. Even a textbook example of why things should stay in the temperment they were written in. Calling this more interesting is at best a microtonal agenda trying to get us to appreciate our 10/9s and 9/8s, at worst it's some jackasses who's found that noxious dissonance is the new kicking sandcastles.* Not to say that I didn't once believe this myself, but preferring things that sound bad is same sort of Adornian horseshit that Taruskin will eventually give an open palm to. Out of tune is not the new seconds are the new thirds are the new seconds.

Speakings of preferring things that sound bad... with All Hallow's Eve and the baseball postseason over and done with, my mind is turning to perhaps mounting another tournament of champions as I did this season last year. I'm investigating a renovation to the infrastructure, but I implore all of you to submit annoying nominees, or if you think this is even a good idea. I might be clouded by the filthy lucre of more pageviews, but this year will be the best year ever (out of two)!

* Upon reading the post it's obvious that neither is actually the case, but I can speak in hypotheticals, right?